How Aldon Smith discovered ‘most important thing' through struggles
How Aldon Smith discovered ‘most important thing' through struggles originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Aldon Smith established himself as a star early in his NFL career, and he appeared to be on a path toward all-time greatness.
Years later, he has perspective on his time in the NFL, which included his first four professional seasons with the 49ers.
“I was good at playing football, but I wasn't a good football player,” he told NBC Sports Bay Area on the latest "49ers Talk."
There is no explanation needed for the first part of Smith’s self-assessment. He reached 30 career quarterback sacks faster than any player in league history.
In 2012, his second year in the NFL, he registered 19.5 sacks with the 49ers and was named the winner of the Bill Walsh Award for best representing the standard of excellence the legendary coach established with the franchise while winning three Super Bowls in the 1980s.
But Smith admits he did not take care of business in order to make himself a complete player. He needed to learn lessons on and off the field, he said.
“Being a football player is, in my opinion, a responsibility and something that you need some discipline and direction and help and guidance,” he said. “There’s a lot that goes into it.”
“There were things off the field that I needed to work on, just being a young man and wandering in my way about life.”
The 49ers released Smith in the summer of 2015 following his third DUI arrest since he entered the NFL as the No. 7 overall pick in 2011. He served a nine-game suspension the previous year for violations of the league’s personal conduct and substance abuse policies. In 2013, he took a five-game leave of absence to enter into treatment.
More problems followed him after his time with the 49ers came to an end. He played the 2015 NFL season with the Raiders, then was away from the game for four full seasons. The NFL reinstated him in 2020, and he played for the Dallas Cowboys.
He served a six-month jail sentence last year in San Mateo County Jail after pleading no contest for a 2021 DUI crash.
“I think it’s important for us to understand that the relationship we have with ourselves is the most important thing, and how we see ourselves is the most important thing,” Smith said.
“When you guys met me as a 20-year-old, I probably had the worst self-esteem, the worst relationship with myself. And to everybody else, they probably wonder how could that be when I was so successful on the field. But I didn't see myself how everybody else saw me. And so I struggled with a lot of things.”
Smith said he learned a lot during those dark times to identify his coping mechanisms.
“Through my struggles with drinking and all of the different things that I went through. I was able to develop that relationship along the way by all of the times that I was away from ball and went to a treatment center or a therapist,” Smith said. “It gave me a chance to really work and develop on who I am.
“I’m so excited to be able to share that because you’ve seen the different stages, and I’m so blessed to be able to have this opportunity to talk about how it felt looking at life through the lens one way and now having a completely different perspective on life and what that shift can do.”
Smith said the past three years without football have been the most difficult years of his life. While acknowledging his life is a work in progress, he said he is achieving consistency.
Smith has knowledge through life experiences that he believes can enable him to serve as a resource for young men entering the NFL — or people of any age. He will be serving as a mentor for rookies with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Las Vegas Raiders.
There is a lot to be learned from Smith’s life experiences, good and bad, he said. He is quick to point out that his life has included plenty of positive memories, too.
“If you’re going to tell a story, you got to tell all the story,” he said. “You've got to tell all the other stories, not just the ones you pick and choose to tell, because there's been more good than bad, and there's more good than bad in life in general.
“Being able to focus on the good just creates more good. And that's what I urge people to try to work on.”
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